195 research outputs found
Black-holes, topological strings and large N phase transitions
The counting of microstates of BPS black-holes on local Calabi-Yau of the
form is explored
by computing the partition function of q-deformed Yang-Mills theory on .
We obtain, at finite , the instanton expansion of the gauge theory. It can
be written exactly as the partition function for U(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory
on a Lens space, summed over all non-trivial vacua, plus a tower of
non-perturbative instanton contributions. In the large limit we find a
peculiar phase structure in the model. At weak string coupling the theory
reduces to the trivial sector and the topological string partition function on
the resolved conifold is reproduced in this regime. At a certain critical
point, instantons are enhanced and the theory undergoes a phase transition into
a strong coupling regime. The transition from the strong coupling phase to the
weak coupling phase is of third order.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; Invited talk given at QG05, Cala Gonone (Italy),
September 200
Phase transitions, double-scaling limit, and topological strings
Topological strings on Calabi--Yau manifolds are known to undergo phase
transitions at small distances. We study this issue in the case of perturbative
topological strings on local Calabi--Yau threefolds given by a bundle over a
two-sphere. This theory can be regarded as a q--deformation of Hurwitz theory,
and it has a conjectural nonperturbative description in terms of q--deformed 2d
Yang--Mills theory. We solve the planar model and find a phase transition at
small radius in the universality class of 2d gravity. We give strong evidence
that there is a double--scaled theory at the critical point whose all genus
free energy is governed by the Painlev\'e I equation. We compare the critical
behavior of the perturbative theory to the critical behavior of its
nonperturbative description, which belongs to the universality class of 2d
supergravity. We also give evidence for a new open/closed duality relating
these Calabi--Yau backgrounds to open strings with framing.Comment: 49 pages, 3 eps figures; section added on non-perturbative proposal
and 2d gravity; minor typos correcte
Flips, dualities and symmetry enhancements
Abstract
We present various 4d
N
= 1 theories enjoying IR global symmetry enhancement. The models we consider have the USp(2N) gauge group, 8 fundamental, one antisymmetric chirals and various numbers of gauge singlets. By suitably turning on superpotential deformations involving the singlets which break part of the UV symmetry we flow to SCFTs with E6, SO(10), SO(9), SO(8) and F4 IR global symmetry. We explain these patterns of symmetry enhancement following two arguments due to Razamat, Sela and Zafrir. The first one involves the study of the relations satisfied by marginal operators, while the second one relies on the existence of self-duality frames.</jats:p
Localization techniques in quantum field theories
This is the foreword to the special issue on localization techniques in quantum field theory. The summary of individual chapters is given and their interrelation is discussed
\Omega-deformation of B-twisted gauge theories and the 3d-3d correspondence
We study \Omega-deformation of B-twisted gauge theories in two dimensions. As
an application, we construct an \Omega-deformed, topologically twisted
five-dimensional maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on the product of a
Riemann surface and a three-manifold , and show that when
is a disk, this theory is equivalent to analytically continued Chern-Simons
theory on . Based on these results, we establish a correspondence between
three-dimensional superconformal theories and analytically
continued Chern-Simons theory. Furthermore, we argue that there is a mirror
symmetry between {\Omega}-deformed two-dimensional theories.Comment: 26 pages. v2: the discussion on the boundary condition for vector
multiplet improved, and other minor changes mad
Gauge-Invariant Resummation Formalism and Unitarity in Non-Commutative QED
We re-examine the perturbative properties of four-dimensional non-commutative
QED by extending the pinch techniques to the theta-deformed case. The explicit
independence of the pinched gluon self-energy from gauge-fixing parameters, and
the absence of unphysical thresholds in the resummed propagators permits a
complete check of the optical theorem for the off-shell two-point function. The
known anomalous (tachyonic) dispersion relations are recovered within this
framework, as well as their improved version in the (softly broken) SUSY case.
These applications should be considered as a first step in constructing
gauge-invariant truncations of the Schwinger-Dyson equations in the
non-commutative case. An interesting result of our formalism appears when
considering the theory in two dimensions: we observe a finite gauge-invariant
contribution to the photon mass because of a novel incarnation of IR/UV mixing,
which survives the commutative limit when matter is present.Comment: 30 pages, 2 eps figure, uses axodraw. Citations adde
Urban informality and confinement: toward a relational framework
In the 21st century, a growing number of people live ‘informal’ lives within fissures between legality and informality. Concomitantly, power relations are increasingly expressed through devices of confinement. While urban informality and confinement are on the rise often occurring simultaneously, scholars have so far studied them separately. By contrast, this article proposes a new framework for analysing urban informality and confinement relationally. It generates new insights into the role of informality in the (re)production of confinement and, vice versa, the role of confinement in shaping informal practices. While these insights are valuable for urban studies in general, the article charts new lines of research on urban marginality. It also discusses how the six articles included in this special issue signal the heuristic potential of this relational framework by empirically examining distinct urban configurations of ‘confined informalities’ and ‘informal confinements’ across the Global North and the Global South
A 5d/3d duality from relativistic integrable system
We propose and prove a new exact duality between the F-terms of
supersymmetric gauge theories in five and three dimensions with adjoint matter
fields. The theories are compactified on a circle and are subject to the Omega
deformation. In the limit proposed by Nekrasov and Shatashvili, the
supersymmetric vacua become isolated and are identified with the eigenstates of
a quantum integrable system. The effective twisted superpotentials are the
Yang-Yang functional of the relativistic elliptic Calogero-Moser model. We show
that they match on-shell by deriving the Bethe ansatz equation from the saddle
point of the five-dimensional partition function. We also show that the
Chern-Simons terms match and extend our proposal to the elliptic quiver
generalizations.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures. v2: typo corrected, references adde
Nonperturbative aspects of ABJM theory
Using the matrix model which calculates the exact free energy of ABJM theory
on S^3 we study non-perturbative effects in the large N expansion of this
model, i.e., in the genus expansion of type IIA string theory on AdS4xCP^3. We
propose a general prescription to extract spacetime instanton actions from
general matrix models, in terms of period integrals of the spectral curve, and
we use it to determine them explicitly in the ABJM matrix model, as exact
functions of the 't Hooft coupling. We confirm numerically that these
instantons control the asymptotic growth of the genus expansion. Furthermore,
we find that the dominant instanton action at strong coupling determined in
this way exactly matches the action of an Euclidean D2-brane instanton wrapping
RP^3.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures. v2: small corrections, final version published
in JHE
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